TEAM KNOWS WHAT'S IMPORTANT.

Byline: Eddie Pells Associated Press 

Auburn's basketball team will probably be better this year, but coach Cliff Ellis admits there are times when that doesn't seem so important to him.

As a 24-year coaching veteran, Ellis has coached winning teams. He's been to NCAA tournaments. He's worked with players who have gone onto successful careers in the NBA.

But he has never met a player like Wes Flanigan.

Flanigan is the Auburn guard who got shocking news at the end of last season. Doctors told him he had bone cancer in his arm.

``When something like that happens, it kind of puts the importance of basketball in perspective,'' Ellis said. ``Naturally, he was devastated. I think I was more devastated than he was.''

Last season, Flanigan led the Tigers in scoring with 13.4 points a game and the SEC in assists with 6.7. Over the summer, he had surgery to remove a sarcoma from his left humerus, the upper-arm bone.

But in a remarkably short period, Flanigan has returned to play basketball again.

The operation was a complex and painful process that involved the removal of an area of muscle and the soft-tissue part of the tumor down to the bone. A bone graft was then taken from his right fibula, the non-weight-bearing bone in the lower leg, and a bone plate was placed over the graft to stabilize his arm bone.

Doctors say all the cancer apparently has been removed. Flanigan isn't on any medication and shouldn't have to undergo radiation treatments or chemotherapy.

The 6-foot-1 guard out of Little Rock, Ark., is practicing and is expected to start in Auburn's opener, Nov. 22 at Alabama-Birmingham. But he admits the cancer has shoved basketball a little farther down on his list of priorities.

``It's the kind of thing that made me look at things and decide what I want to do with my life,'' Flanigan said. ``It's helped me become a better person.''

Had Flanigan not been injured when he was bumped to the floor in the SEC tournament last March, he may not have been so quick to go in for a checkup on the arm, which doctors had been treating for calcium deposits.

That's when they discovered the cancer. Flanigan got the news a week later when the doctors asked to meet with him.

``I thought I was just going in for a normal conversation with them,'' Flanigan said. ``But then we were sitting around and no one was saying anything, so I figured something was going on. After they told me the details . . . well, when someone tells you that you have cancer, it's a pretty big word. I just felt lucky it hadn't spread to other parts of my body.''

Auburn center Pat Burke said nobody takes it easy on Flanigan in practice, even though he limps a little.